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The idea was brought to the parking lot at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, where Rudy Giuliani held a Trump campaign press conference between an adult bookstore and a crematorium while the presidential race for Biden was scheduled.
Marker or not, there is no doubt the northeast Philadelphia family-run gardening business will go down in history.
It’s the focus of a hugely successful charity run that is likely to be repeated. It was featured in several newspapers. It attracted Yelp reviews from across the nation. It served as the backdrop for Saturday Night Live and other late night TV skits. His branded merch is one of the hottest gift items of the Christmas season.
And now a conceptual work of art is being remembered that sells across the Atlantic for up to $ 15,000.
Tracey Snelling is an artist living in Germany who specializes in multimedia sculptures. Using wood, plaster, paint and electronic components, she creates miniaturized representations of places that convey why they are worth remembering. Motels are a popular theme, as are urban vignettes and the interiors of American homes.
Sometimes Snelling shapes real places, and sometimes her scenes are an amalgamation that emerges from news, stereotypes, and other facets of society’s collective consciousness.
Her Four Seasons diorama, completed two weeks after the Giuliani event, is a bit of both.
Courtesy Tracey Snelling
“When I saw both the landscaping and the adult book building, I knew I wanted to build it,” Snelling told Billy Penn. The native Californian, who moved to Berlin four years ago, closely followed the drama of the US elections.
How many people who read the news on Saturday, November 7th, when the incumbent president tweeted about a press conference at Philly’s Four Seasons and then changed his announcement to clarify that the location was not the fancy hotel in Center City was, but a low hotel. She assumed there had been a mix-up.
“I had so many questions!” Said Snelling. “Who made the mistake, and was it someone inside who really tried to make a joke of it? Who answered the call? Did the landscaping ask a lot for the venue? “
Many of these answers did not surface until weeks later, when the Siravo family told an investigative reporter how exactly the incident had ended up on their company’s doorstep.
(Apparently the spot had been targeted because it was easily accessible from I-95. Sales manager Sean Middleton took the first call at 8:45 am that morning and met with campaign staff an hour later. The landscaping company did not charge a fee.)
Snelling did not need to know these details to construct her account of the nefarious event.
Although her work is often incredibly detailed, she doesn’t use measurements or try to follow an exact scale, she said. Things start with an eyeball sketch or photo collage and then build from there.
The Total Landscaping sculpture (15.5 x 27.5 x 17 inches) is made of wood, plaster, paint, metal and LEDs. There’s a small chain link fence, concrete wall, roller shutter door, and lighted signage for the Fantasy Island Adult Book Store and the Delaware Valley Cremation Center.
A video of the actual press conference is played in windows built into the wall of the parking lot at the Four Seasons, interspersed with scenes from “Borat”, the film by Sasha Baron Cohen, in which Giuliani shoved his hands into his pants.
At 50, Snelling has never been to Philly, but she has some prejudices.
“I know Joe Frazier was in Philadelphia and a great boxer. I also think it’s good that your Mayor Jim Kenney told Donald Trump to ‘put on his big boys pants,’ ”Snelling said.
She looks forward to a future visit. “I got the impression that Philadelphians are tough and cool!”
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